Guy from the Urals

I dread descending into prophetic poetry. The melodrama muscle stands ready. I need to fight back, reclaim the internal narrative of my mind. Why are words so ugly? They smash and flatten any hope of communicating emotion. They should be reserved for science journals or newspapers. I want to mindmeld, bring on the Vulcans. Did you know that Vulcan was the name astronomers gave to the planet they simply knew had to exist between Earth and Mars if all their calculations were to make sense. Turns it out there was supposed to be a planet, it just never fully formed and we got left with an asteroid belt. Or so I read once. I wish it had formed. It would make a useful stepping stone.

We are a generation of filmmakers, poets and authors. We will sit here on this historically gorgeous island and view the whirlpool of human destruction about to unfold with a critical eye. We shall make witty comments about the pointlessness of it all and congratulate ourselves for coming from the wine drinking and enlightened class.

Some might don backpacks and head out into the world, although that is coming more unlikely because in the global market place a year at Burger King© and the ‘customer relations’ skills it entails is actually worth more on your CV. Dangerous isn’t it? Yet even those longhaired, sandal wearing and obnoxious few that do leave the island have already got their opinions set in stone. They may have never been to China but they sure as hell already know what they will find when they get there. They will come back knowing exactly what they did when they left – only this time they will be more sure of it.

But of course, that is just the pessimist in me. I have many mental constructs with which I can view the world – this just happens to be today’s. Blah. I belong to the Myspace generation. Everyone’s a publisher and everyone’s been published.

Web 2.0. The social networking revolution. Astonishing stuff. But what are we actually going to do with it all? This is the beginning of a backlash. Fascism started this way – you do know that right? A reaction against the perverse luxury and weakness of the mind that paralyses us all and leaves us adrift on the tides of consumerism. But what do I know. I just used the word consumerism. How pretentious is that?

Have you ever listened to the Gladiator soundtrack? It is phenomenal – I mean it. If you do not have it, buy it now. You can download itunes and purchase it off there – or you can download it from your p2p network of choice. Either way there is no reason why you can’t end the day by listening to it. I love it. It warms the heart. Breaks the bonds of despair. I can feel a new mental construct forming and rising up to seize control of the neuro pathways that provide me with the illusion of consciousness and free will.

I have faith in me and you. I have faith in the cosmic dust that encircles our planet and from which we once came. Regardless of which cruel, corrupt and virtue depriving god you follow. We are first and foremost children of the stars. Everything we are and know was once forged in the fiery core of a sun. If that isn’t spiritually significant enough for you then I don’t what is.

Today we may be hopelessly lost and desperately spoilt. I’d even say we are all horribly self-centred. Yet there is no reason we have to be divided by our insecurities. As in some sort of Soviet poster advertising their great collective farming methods I have this image of all the emos, chavs and geeks with their ill fitting jeans. All the vodka drinking teenagers with cool hair, obscure records and Volvo driving parents. All those kids that you know deserved the chance to become just as chic as you. But instead spend each day of their bizarrely satisfying lives up to their eyeballs in grease, serving fries to miserable people. All of them. All of you.

This is the start of a backlash walked a thousands times before. In fact it is a phase in the personal development of the bourgeois essential to preserving our Volvo driving future. So I have faith, that with our red dungarees and bulging working class biceps we can prevail. But you’ve got to want it. You’ve got to think it’s worth fighting for.

We can’t stay on Myspace forever.